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Page 14 of 40 § 10:71-4.10 Transfer of assets breakfast, locking up the house and riding a bus round-trip to a local senior center, not the activities of someone who would have to have been institutionalized but for her daughter's care. C.S. v. DMAHS et al., OAL DKT. NO. HMA 3190-2017, 2018 N.J. AGEN LEXIS 221, Final Agency Determination (January 10, 2018). Penalty that was imposed upon an applicant for Medicaid benefits based on around $ 100,000 in transfers was approved on review despite the applicant's claim that the same was paid by the applicant, a member of the clergy, to rent a parsonage because the documentary evidence, which included an undated lease that did not impose any rental obligation on the applicant, did not support the claim that rent was paid. I.W. v. DMAHS, OAL DKT. NO. HMA 08372-17, 2018 N.J. AGEN LEXIS 159, Final Agency Determination (January 2, 2018). Because the daughter of a Medicaid applicant wholly failed to substantiate that most of the expenditures that she made using the applicant's funds benefited the applicant and her husband, a transfer penalty was properly imposed. F.L. v. DMAHS, OAL DKT. NO. HMA 10177-17, 2017 N.J. AGEN LEXIS 1313, Final Agency Determination (December 18, 2017). Action by a Medicaid applicant in causing household assets to be used to buy an annuity that provided for payments to his wife, the community spouse, over a five year period did not constitute an improper transfer of cash assets on the basis of which the applicant's eligibility was properly penalized. The annuity satisfied all of the safe harbor criteria in governing law and thus the agency's imposition of a transfer penalty by reason thereof was contrary to federal law and properly reversed. F.S. v. Mercer Cnty. Bd. of Social Servs., OAL DKT. NO. HMA 09075-2017, 2017 N.J. AGEN LEXIS 832, Initial Decision (November 14, 2017). Failure on the part of the son of a Medicaid applicant to produce anything other than handwritten notes that ostensibly indicated the use of the applicant's funds meant that the applicant did not carry her burden to show that the assets were transferred exclusively for a purpose other than to establish Medicaid eligibility. On that basis, the Director of DMAHS adopted the Initial Decision calculating the penalty based on the entire amount of transferred funds. A.P. v. DMAHS, OAL DKT. NO. HMA 11114-17, 2017 N.J. AGEN LEXIS 1070, Final Agency Determination (November 13, 2017). Transfer penalty was properly imposed on the Medicaid eligibility of an applicant for benefits with respect to expenditures that her daughter, as her representative, claimed to have been spent on food for the applicant and her husband. The daughter's testimony was to the effect that the couple spent between $ 80 and $ 100 a day on food and that those expenditures, which exceeded $ 2000 per month, made up the majority of the expenses on which the penalty was imposed. Given the complete lack of any documentation tending to substantiate this claim, it was not shown that the transfers were not undertaken for the purpose of qualifying for benefits so the imposition of a transfer penalty was proper. F.L. v. Ocean Cnty. Bd. of Social Servs. OAL DKT. NO. HMA 10177-2017, 2017 N.J. AGEN LEXIS 833, Initial Decision (October 23, 2017). For purposes of Medicaid, surviving spouses must avail themselves of assets even when the decedent has sought to exclude access. To that end, a surviving spouse's failure to request the elective share or to challenge a will that restricts access to a deceased spouse's assets is considered a transfer of assets for the purpose of imposing a transfer penalty. R.L. v. DMAHS et al, OAL DKT. NO. HMA 9762-2014, 2017 N.J. AGEN LEXIS 1298, Final Agency Determination (October 17, 2017). Transfer penalty was properly imposed on the Medicaid eligibility of an applicant despite her claim that her transfer of her residence to her daughter was properly disregarded by reason of the "caregiver exemption." Though there was no doubt that the applicant's daughter provided care for the applicant and sacrificed a great deal for her comfort, care, and support, the level of care provided by the daughter did not rise to the level qualifying for the caregiver's exemption. C.S. v. Bergen Cnty. Bd. of Social Servs., OAL DKT. NO. HMA 03190-17, 2017 N.J. AGEN LEXIS 789, Initial Decision (October 17, 2017). ALJ rejected the claim of the agency that a Medicaid applicant had transferred a closely held business ostensibly valued at $ 614,700 for less than FMV and instead adopted the expert opinion of a CPA who had handled the business's books to the effect that the business itself had no current value and that the FMV of the remaining